Sutton

by J. R. Moehringer

  I’ll find someone.

  He hangs up, dials Donald, who answers on the tenth ring.

  Donald? It’s Willie.

  Who’s this?

  Willie. What are you doing?

  Oh. Hey. Drinking a beer, getting ready to watch The Flying Nun.

  Listen. It seems they’re letting me out tonight.

  They’re letting you out, or you’re letting yourself out?

  It’s legit, Donald. They’re opening the door.

  Hell freezing over?

  I don’t know. But the devil’s definitely wearing a sweater. Can you pick me up at the front gate?

  Near the Sleeping Beauty thing?

  Yeah.

  Of course.

  Sutton asks Donald if he can bring him a few items.

  Anything, Donald says. Name it.

  A TV van from Buffalo roars up to the gate. A TV reporter jumps out, fusses with his microphone. He’s wearing a two-hundred-dollar suit, a camel-hair topcoat, gray leather gloves, silver cuff links. The print reporters elbow each other. Cuff links—have you ever?

  The TV reporter strolls up to the print reporters and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. Same to you, they mumble. Then silence.

  Silent Night, the TV reporter says.

  No one laughs.

  The reporter from Newsweek asks the TV reporter if he read Pete Hamill in this morning’s Post. Hamill’s eloquent apologia for Sutton, his plea for Sutton’s release, addressed as a letter to the governor, might be the reason they’re all here. Hamill urged Rockefeller to be fair. If Willie Sutton had been a GE board member or a former water commissioner, instead of the son of an Irish blacksmith, he would be on the street now.

  The TV reporter stiffens. He knows the print guys think he doesn’t read—can’t read. Yeah, he says, I thought Hamill nailed it. Especially his line about banks. There are some of us today, looking at the mortgage interest rates, who feel that it is the banks that are sticking us up. And I got a lump in my throat at that bit about Sutton reuniting with a lost love. Willie Sutton should be able to sit and watch the ducks in Prospect Park one more time, or go to Nathan’s for a hot dog, or call up some old girl for a drink.

  This sets off a debate. Does Sutton actually deserve to be free? He’s a thug, says the Newsday reporter—why all the adulation?

  Because he’s a god in parts of Brooklyn, says the Post reporter. Just look at this crowd.

  There are now more than two dozen reporters and another two dozen civilians—crime buffs, police radio monitors, curiosity seekers. Freaks. Ghouls.

  But again, says the Newsday reporter, I ask you—why?

  Because Sutton robbed banks, the TV reporter says, and who the hell has a kind word to say for banks? They should not only let him out, they should give him the key to the city.

  What I don’t get, says the Look reporter, is why Rockefeller, a former banker, would let out a bank robber.

  Rockefeller needs the Irish vote, says the Times Union reporter. You can’t get reelected in New York without the Irish vote and Sutton’s like Jimmy Walker and Michael Collins and a couple Kennedys in one big Mulligan stew.

  He’s a fuckin thug, says the Newsday reporter, who may be drunk.

  The TV reporter scoffs. Under his arm he’s carrying last week’s Life magazine, with Charles Manson on the cover. He holds up the magazine: Manson glares at them.

  Compared to this guy, the TV reporter says, and the Hells Angels, and the soldiers who slaughtered all those innocent people at My Lai—Willie Sutton is a pussycat.

  Yeah, says the Newsday reporter, he’s a real pacifist. He’s the Gandhi of Gangsters.

  All those banks, the TV reporter says, all those prisons, and the guy never fired a single shot. He never hurt a fly.

  The Newsday reporter gets in the TV reporter’s face. What about Arnold Schuster? he says.

  Aw, the TV reporter says, Sutton had nothing to do with Schuster.

  Says who?

  Says me.

  And who the fuck are you?

  I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not some burned-out hack.

  The Times reporter jumps between them. You two cannot get in a fistfight about whether or not someone is nonviolent—on Christmas Eve.

  Why not?

  Because if you do I’ll have to write about it.

  The talk swings back to the warden. Doesn’t he realize that the temperature is now close to zero? Oh you bet he realizes. He’s loving this. He’s on some kind of power trip. Everybody these days is on a power trip. Mailer, Nixon, Manson, the Zodiac Killer, the cops—it’s 1969, man, Year of the Power Trip. The warden’s probably watching them right now on his closed-circuit TV, sipping a brandy and laughing his fat ass off. It’s not enough that they have to be part of this massive clusterfuck, but they also have to be the dupes and patsies of some crypto fascist macho dick?

  You’re all welcome to sit in my truck, the TV reporter says. It’s warm. We’ve got TV. The Flying Nun is on.

  Groans.

  Sutton lies on his bunk, waiting. At seven o’clock Right Guard appears at the door.

  Sorry, Sutton. It’s not happening.

  Sir?

  Left Guard appears behind Right Guard. New orders just came down from the dep, he says—no go.

  No go—why?

  Why what?

  Why sir?

  Right Guard shrugs. Some kind of beef between Rockefeller and the parole department. They can’t agree who’s going to take responsibility, or how the press release should be worded.

  So I’m not—?

  No.

  Sutton looks at the walls, the bars. His wrists. The purple veins, bubbled and wormy. He should’ve done it when he had the chance.

  Right Guard starts laughing. Left Guard too. Just kidding, Sutton. On your feet.

  They unlock the door, lead him down to the tailor. He strips out of his prison grays, puts on a crisp new white shirt, a new blue tie, a new black suit with a two-button front. He pulls on the new black socks, slips on the new black wingtips. He turns to the mirror. Now he can see the old swagger.

  He faces Tailor. How do I look?

  Tailor jiggles his coins and buttons, gives a thumbs-up.

  Sutton turns to the guards. Nothing.

  Right Guard alone leads Sutton through Times Square, then past Admin and toward the front entrance. God it’s cold. Sutton cradles his shopping bag of belongings and ignores the cramping and burning and sizzling pain in his leg. A plastic tube is holding open the artery and he can feel it getting ready to collapse like a paper straw.

  You need an operation, the doctor said after the insertion of the tube two years ago.

  If I wait on the operation, will I lose the leg, Doc?

  No, Willie, you won’t lose the leg—you’ll die.

  But Sutton waited. He didn’t want some prison doctor opening him up. He wouldn’t trust a prison doctor to open a checking account. Now it seems he made the right call. He might be able to have the operation at a real hospital, and pay for it with the proceeds of his novel. Provided someone will publish it. Provided there’s still time. Provided he lives through this night, this moment. Tomorrow.

  Right Guard leads Sutton around a metal detector, around a sign-in table, and to a black metal door. Right Guard unlocks it. Sutton steps forward. He looks back at Right Guard, who’s belittled and beaten him for the last seventeen years. Right Guard has censored Sutton’s letters, confiscated his books, denied his requests for soap and pens and toilet paper, slapped him when he forgot to put a sir at the end of a sentence. Right Guard braces himself—this is the moment prisoners like to get things off their chests. But Sutton smiles as if something inside him is opening like a flower. Merry Christmas kid.

  Right Guard’s head snaps back. He waits a beat. Two. Yeah, Merry Christmas, Willie. Good luck to you.

  It’s shortly before eight o’clock.

  Right Guard pushes open the door and out walks Willie Sutton.

  A photogra
pher from Life shouts, Here he is! Three dozen reporters converge. The freaks and ghouls push in. TV cameras veer toward Sutton’s face. Lights, brighter than prison searchlights, hit his azure eyes.

  How’s it feel to be free, Willie?

  Do you think you’ll ever rob another bank, Willie?

  What do you have to say to Arnold Schuster’s family?

  Sutton points to the full moon. Look, he says.

  Three dozen reporters and two dozen civilians and one archcriminal look up at the night sky. The first time Sutton has seen the moon, face-to-face, in seventeen years—it takes his breath.

  Look, he says again. Look at this beautiful clear night God has made for Willie.

  Now, beyond the crush of reporters Sutton sees a man with pumpkin-colored hair and stubborn orange freckles leaning against a red 1967 Pontiac GTO. Sutton waves, Donald hurries over. They shake hands. Donald shoves aside several reporters, leads Sutton to the GTO. When Sutton is settled into the passenger seat, Donald slams the door and shoves another reporter, just for fun. He runs around the car, jumps behind the wheel, mashes the gas pedal. Away they go, sending up a wave of wet mud and snow and salt. It sprays the reporter from Newsday. His face, his chest, his shirt, his overcoat. He looks down at his clothes, then up at his colleagues:

  Like I said—a thug.

  Sutton doesn’t speak. Donald lets him not speak. Donald knows. Donald walked out of Attica nine months ago. They both stare at the icy road and the frozen woods and Sutton tries to sort his thoughts. After a few miles he asks if Donald was able to get that thing they discussed on the phone.

  Yes, Willie.

  Is she alive?

  Don’t know. But I found her last known address.

  Donald hands over a white envelope. Sutton holds it like a chalice. His mind starts to go. Back to Brooklyn. Back to Coney Island. Back to 1919. Not yet, he tells himself, not yet. He shuts off his mind, something he’s gotten good at over the years. Too good, one prison shrink told him.

  He slides the envelope into the breast pocket of his new suit. Twenty years since he’s had a breast pocket. It was always his favorite pocket, the one where he kept the good stuff. Engagement rings, enameled cigarette cases, leather billfolds from Abercrombie. Guns.

  Donald asks who she is and why Sutton needs her address.

  I shouldn’t tell you, Donald.

  We got no secrets between us, Willie.

  We’ve got nothing but secrets between us, Donald.

  Yeah. That’s true, Willie.

  Sutton looks at Donald and remembers why Donald was in the joint. A month after Donald lost his job on a fishing boat, two weeks after Donald’s wife left him, a man in a bar said Donald looked beat. Donald, thinking the man was insulting him, threw a punch, and the man made the mistake of returning fire. Donald, a former college wrestler, put the man in a chokehold, broke his neck.

  Sutton turns on the radio. He looks for news, can’t find any. He leaves it on a music station. The music is moody, sprightly—different.

  What is this, Donald?

  The Beatles.

  So this is the Beatles.

  They say nothing for miles. They listen to Lennon. The lyrics remind Sutton of Ezra Pound. He pats the shopping bag on his lap.

  Donald downshifts the GTO, turns to Willie. Does the name in the envelope have anything at all to do with—you know who?

  Sutton looks at Donald. Who?

  You know. Schuster?

  No. Of course not. Jesus, Donald, what makes you ask that?

  I don’t know. Just a feeling.

  No, Donald. No.

  Sutton puts a hand in his breast pocket. Thinks. Well, he says, I guess maybe it does—in a roundabout way. All roads eventually lead to Schuster, right, Donald?

  Donald nods. Drives. You look good, Willie Boy.

  They say I’m dying.

  Bullshit. You’ll never fuckin die.

  Yeah. Right.

  You couldn’t die if you wanted to.

  Hm. You have no idea how true that is.

  Donald lights two cigarettes, hands one to Sutton. How about a drink? Do you have time before your flight?

  What an interesting idea. A ball of Jameson, as my Daddo used to say.

  Donald pulls off the highway and parks outside a low-down roadhouse. Sprigs of holly and Christmas lights strung over the bar. Sutton hasn’t seen Christmas lights since his beloved Dodgers were in Brooklyn. He hasn’t seen any lights other than the prison’s eye-scalding fluorescents and the bare sixty-watt bulb in his cell.

  Look, Donald. Lights. You know you’ve been in hell when a string of colored bulbs over a crummy bar looks more beautiful than Luna Park.

  Donald jerks his head toward the bartender, a young blond girl wearing a tight paisley blouse and a miniskirt. Speaking of beautiful, Donald says.

  Sutton stares. They didn’t have miniskirts when I went away, he says quietly, respectfully.

  You’ve come back to a different world, Willie.

  Donald orders a Schlitz. Sutton asks for Jameson. The first sip is bliss. The second is a right cross. Sutton swallows the rest in one searing gulp and slaps the bar and asks for another.

  The TV above the bar is showing the news.

  Our top story tonight. Willie the Actor Sutton, the most prolific bank robber in American history, has been released from Attica Correctional Facility. In a surprise move by Governor Nelson Rockefeller …

  Sutton stares into the grain of the bar top, thinking: Nelson Rockefeller, son of John D. Rockefeller Jr., grandson of John D. Rockefeller Sr., close friend of—Not yet, he tells himself.

  He reaches into his breast pocket, touches the envelope.

  Now Sutton’s face appears on the screen. His former face. An old mug shot. No one along the bar recognizes him. Sutton gives Donald a sly smile, a wink. They don’t know me, Donald. I can’t remember the last time I was in a room full of people who didn’t know me. Feels nice.

  Donald orders another round. Then another.

  I hope you have money, Sutton says. I only have two checks from Governor Rockefeller.

  Which will probably fuckin bounce, Donald says, slurring.

  Say, Donald—want to see a trick?

  Always.

  Sutton limps down the bar. He limps back. Ta da.

  Donald blinks. I don’t think I get it.

  I walked from here to there without a hack hassling me. Without a con messing with me. Ten feet—two more feet than the length of my fuckin cell, Donald. And I didn’t have to call anyone sir before or after. Have you ever seen anything so marvelous?

  Donald laughs.

  Ah Donald—to be free. Actually free. There’s no way to describe it to someone who hasn’t been in the joint.

  Everyone should have to do time, Donald says, smothering a belch, so they could know.

  Time. Willie looks at the clock over the bar. Shit, Donald, we better go.

  Donald drives them weavingly along icy back roads. Twice they go skidding onto the shoulder. A third time they almost hit a snowbank.

  You okay to drive, Donald?

  Fuck no, Willie, what gave you that idea?

  Sutton grips the dashboard. He stares in the distance at the lights of Buffalo. He recalls that speedboats used to run booze down here from Canada. This whole area, he says, was run by Polish gangs back in the twenties.

  Donald snorts. Polish gangsters—what’d they do, stick people up and hand over their wallets?

  They’d have cut the tongue out of your head for saying that. The Poles made us Micks look like choirboys. And the Polish cops were the cruelest of all.

  Shocking, Donald says with dripping sarcasm.

  Did you know President Grover Cleveland was the executioner up here?

  Is that so?

  It was Cleveland’s job to knot the noose around the prisoner’s neck, drop him through the gallows floor.

  A job’s a job, Donald says.

  They called him the Hangman of Buffalo. Then his
face wound up on the thousand-dollar bill.

  Still reading your American history, I see, Willie.

  They arrive at the private airfield. They’re met by a young man with a square head and a deep dimple in his square chin. The reporter presumably. He shakes Sutton’s hand and says his name, but Sutton is drunker than Donald and doesn’t catch it.

  Pleasure to meet you kid.

  Same here, Mr. Sutton.

  Reporter has thick brown hair, deep black eyes and a gleaming Pepsodent smile. Beneath each smooth cheek a pat of red glows like an ember, maybe from the cold, more likely from good health. Even more enviable is Reporter’s nose. Thin and straight as a shiv.

  It’s a very short flight, he tells Sutton. Are you all set?

  Sutton looks at the low clouds, the plane. He looks at Reporter. Then Donald.

  Mr. Sutton?

  Well kid. You see. This is actually my first time on an airplane.

  Oh. Oh. Well. It’s perfectly safe. But if you’d rather leave in the morning.

  Nah. The sooner I get to New York the better. So long, Donald.

  Merry Christmas, Willie.

  The plane has four seats. Two in the front, two in the back. Reporter straps Sutton into one of the backseats, then sits up front next to the pilot. A few snowflakes fall as they taxi down the runway. They come to a full stop and the pilot talks into the radio and the radio crackles back with numbers and codes and Sutton suddenly remembers the first time he rode in a car. Which was stolen. Well, bought with stolen money. Which Sutton stole. He was almost eighteen and steering that new car down the road felt like flying. Now, fifty years later, he’s going to fly through the air. He feels a painful pressure building below his heart. This is not safe. He reads every day in the paper about another plane scattered in pieces on some mountaintop, in some field or lake. Gravity is no joke. Gravity is one of the few laws he’s never broken. He’d rather be in Donald’s GTO right now, fishtailing on icy back roads. Maybe he can pay Donald to drive him to New York. Maybe he’ll take the bus. Fuck, he’ll walk. But first he needs to get out of this plane. He claws at his seat belt.

  The engine gives a high piercing whine and the plane rears back like a horse and goes screaming down the runway. Sutton thinks of the astronauts. He thinks of Lindbergh. He thinks of the bald man in the red long johns who used to get shot from a cannon at Coney Island. He closes his eyes and says a prayer and clutches his shopping bag. When he opens his eyes again the full moon is right outside his window, Jackie Gleasoning him.